I recently finished a lightning quick trip to the US primarily to visit family and attend my grandmother’s unveiling (before rushing off for an even quicker trip to France to taste this year’s releases from Royal, Koenig, and Taieb – more on that soon). It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year since her passing….

Usually on these trips, I try to hang with friends and if I can squeeze in some wine on the way, even better. This trip I committed myself to running a tasting for a group on one of the nights and I had family obligations as well, which left little time to catch up with friends. I also try to set a night each trip to catch up with the Gellers, but Gabriel was flying out the day after I landed leaving only one night of overlap – and to make matters worse, he was already committed to attending a media dinner for Kosherfest. Well, if Mohamed won’t come to the mountain…. So I attended this dinner which was held at ETC. In general I usually prefer Nobo to ETC in terms of Teaneck dinner places, but they did a great job pushing out food to the 30 or so attendees. The sponsor was Royal, and the wines needed to be mevushal for the restaurant – and so that is what we drank. The highlights for me included the following recently released wines:

2015 Chateau Rollan de By – This wine is a beautiful example of what the 2015 vintage is – even in mevushal. In fact being mevushal actually helps here as it is more expressive than most at this stage than I would have expected. While not fully there yet (can probably use three years of aging) – it is showing beautiful red tart fruit, with toasted herbs wrapped in a nice earthiness. Body is somewhere between medium and full with firm tannin and great acidity to keep it bright. Really a great choice.

2017 Herzog Lake County Cabernet Sauvignon – From my vantage point, this was the crowd favorite among the 30 or so attendees. They just pounded the stuff. While I often make fun of how the American palate is stuck on CS, when done right, you really can’t complain. This guy is just beautiful with dark red fruit up front with some nice pencil shavings, then some bright red fruit and toasted herbs at the end. It is a rich full-bodied wine with a rocking amount of both tannin and acidity at this point. IMHO it also needs a good 3 years or so to show best, but it is an absolute pleasure right now too.

There were another couple of new wines to note: